We docked at Punta Valiente and walked on a trail through the rainforest to the next village over, which sits right on the beach. Villagers were eager to help carry our surfboards, cooler and other gear (for a nominal fee) and were very kind and patient with my shattered Spanish.

I had an unhealthy obsession with the cows. This is a very whittled down collection of the pics I took of them. I was like that touridiot in Yellowstone who gets way too close to the elk for a photo op (again, see pic of me with my sunbathing bovine buddy):

But the best part were the kids. Sue taught them how to play root ball. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve lived in WNC for three years and have never been to The Root Bar nor played the game myself, but man, these kids were good!

I got back to the docks before everyone else and a group of children crowded around me. As interesting as I found their culture, Lloyd later told me that they are probably more fascinated and entertained by me than I am by them. They didn’t speak English, and again my Spanish is limited to random vocab I retrieve from the recesses of my brain. I picture the words crawling out of cobwebbed boxes marked “elementary school” as I blurt out “primos” (cousins) and the full sentence, “Quantos anos tienes tu?” (from the many birthday celebrations).

What I lacked in words, I made up for in technology. I pulled our camera out of our backpack and at first started taking pictures of them. Then, I realized that they probably don’t get the opportunity very often to be on the other side of a camera. So I showed them how to point and click. Some of them were too timid, but Edwin really got into it:

Self-portrait.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but when it comes to language barriers, a camera’s pretty priceless.